\title{Synecdoche, New York}
\author{Joseph Barratt}
\date{\today}

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{fullpage}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{hanging}
\newcommand{\sny}{\textit{Synecdoche, New York}}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\doublespacing

\sny\ is a film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman.  At once dreamlike and
gritty, it chronicles the life of director Caden Cotard as he tries to create a
theatre masterpiece that holds ``a mirror up to real life.'' The film itself
also holds a mirror up to real life, and in particular it does so in a
signature, Kaufman way. Kaufman ``has only one subject, the mind, and only one
plot, how the mind negotiates with reality, fantasy, hallucination, desire and
dreams,'' says critic Roger Ebert, `` `Being John Malkovich.' `Eternal Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind.' `Adaptation.' `Human Nature.' `Confessions of a Dangerous
Mind.' What else are they about? He is working in plain view.'' It's this theme
that Ebert points to as the defining Kaufman element, and Ebert recognizes that
\sny\ is a prime example---the prime example, I would argue. Ebert expresses his
excitement that Kaufman ``is one of the few truly important writers to make
screenplay his medium'' and that now ``for the first time he directs.'' I will
go farther and argue that this, the first film he's directed, is also the
greatest realization of his theme.

Kaufman's films tend to feature surrealism, dark humor, and themes of reality
and identity to communicate his message.  \sny\ realizes these elements to a
greater extent than any of his previous films. This time around, he took the
directing into his own hands, showcasing the theme and art he'd been maturing
for years. \sny\ is the premiere example of Kaufman's film work.

In Kaufman's movies, the surrealistic atmosphere is always striking. As he was
first a writer before he entered film, Kaufman tends to utilize the kinds of
fantastic symbols and metaphors seen in modern fiction. In his \textit{Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind}, the concept of memory is explored as a bizarre
scientific process literally removes the memories of the characters. With the
written word, description of the conscious as a mote on a sea of memories and
ideas comes more easily; words are the invisible projections of thought, and
thus are a natural choice for exploring the invisible mind. But it can be done
visually, and that is what Kaufman does in his films: He explores the invisible
world with visible images, and the results are surreal. 

It's especially easy to spot these surreal elements in \sny. Hazel, one of
Caden's lovers, lives in a house that is perpetually burning, with flames
licking the walls and tables, and smoke filling up the small spaces. When she
purchases the place, she says, ``I like it. I do!  I'm---I'm just really
concerned about dying in the fire.'' Which she does, eventually. That's the sort
of thing we experience in dreams, and \sny\ as a whole flows in a dreamlike
tumble. Time passes nonlinearly, with months going by all at once, or all at
once it's been five years. In one scene a man interrupts Caden going over the
day's stage directions and asks, ``when are we going to get an audience in here?
It's been seventeen years,'' which is a revelation to the audience. Kaufman
takes us to the land of the lotus eaters, where time slips by and stitches
together jumbled images like those we see as we sleep.  There are also
impossibly large and impractically small things in the film: Caden's massive
city within a warehouse and the microscopic paintings his first wife, Adele, is
famous for. While Adele's paintings shrink over the course of the movie, the
warehouse seems to grow---eventually it houses a cascading series of cities
within warehouses within cities within warehouses, ad absurdum. This goes beyond
the real, into the realm projected by the subconscious, the surreal.

Kaufman's films aren't just dreams and tricks; he brings the story to a more
human level with his use of dark humor. In high school Kaufman performed as a
comedic actor, and, at the beginning of his writing career, Kaufman worked on
the television sitcom ``Get A Life'' (IMDB). Humor has always been a tool in
Kaufman's workbench, but it's important to realize that he wields it as a tool,
with a purpose and effect in mind. In \textit{Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind}, zany and hilarious scenes including one in which Jim Carrey physically
reverts to a confused baby-version of himself don't just make audiences laugh.
The effect is to make us think about the beauty of our memories and it turns
dark in light of the premise of the movie: destroying our memories. Kaufman's
sense of humor goes beyond making audiences laugh; it makes even the dark
themes more pointed and provocative. 

Like his other films, \sny\ has elements of humor. Some of the funniest moments
in the film are miscommunications, especially with doctors. In one scene, Caden,
suffering from a mysterious illness and fearing for his life, is directed by his
ophthalmologist to see a neurologist:
\begin{quote} 
    Caden: Why do I need to see a neurologist?

    Ophthalmologist: For a look-see. The eyes are part of the brain, after all.

    Caden: That's not true, is it?

    Ophthalmologist: Why would I say it if it weren't true?

    Caden: It just doesn't seem right.

    Ophthalmologist: Like morally correct? Or right as in accurate?

    Caden: I'm not sure. Accurate, I guess.

    Ophthalmologist: Hmm. Interesting.
\end{quote}
---and the scene ends. It's funny, but it's more than funny. It says something
dark about the people we put our trust in when things are falling apart. Even
so, I laughed, and it's the laugh that gets the message in past one's defenses.
Another message Kaufman sends in \sny\ is that life is hard. This message is
delivered by a mock preacher during a mock funeral, laced with pseudo-religious
diction and foul cussing. It ends, ``Well, fuck everybody.  Amen.'' \sny\ pulls
no punches when it comes to this theme, and Kaufman dishes out a powerful
uppercut with this kind of humor that makes one wince and grin at the same time.

The nested warehouses exemplify another component common to Kaufman films---the
themes of reality and identity. Many of Kaufman's films communicate this theme
using various types of framed stories. In \textit{Being John Malkovitch}, there
is the story of John Malkovitch himself, but it is inside the story of the
people trying to get into his story.  For Kaufman, whose life work is getting
inside stories, this is an extremely important theme. His film
\textit{Adaptation} exemplifies it best, because it is film about a man named
Charlie Kaufman who is creating a movie. In similar ways, the warehouses in
\sny\ challenge our notions of reality and reflect the difficulties Caden
experiences in trying to relate his own identity. He wants to express real life,
but it seems to him that the only thing that does it justice is itself. The
result is a warehouse within a warehouse within a warehouse within a play with a
play within a life---all within a film. These motifs reflect Kaufman's own
struggles with expressing his ideas about reality and identity. It's no accident
that Caden continually finds men and women to play himself, to reflect himself
back to him: he's trying to discover his identity.

\sny\ meets these criteria fully, and in some respects realizes them at greater
levels than other Kaufman films. \sny\ is creepily surreal, and parts of it make
one laugh and all of it makes one think. The play Caiden tries to create is
about reflecting the gritty reality of life, and the movie Kaufman created is
about that same thing. It's also about the search for identity. \sny\ is in many
ways a culmination of the devices and themes that Kaufman has been developing
throughout his career.

\newpage

\begin{hangparas}{.25in}{1}

``Charlie Kaufman - Biography.'' The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 01 Nov.
2011. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0442109/bio.

``Synecdoche, New York :: Rogerebert.com :: Reviews.'' Rogerebert.com :: Movie
Reviews, Essays and the Movie Answer Man from Film Critic Roger Ebert. Web. 01
Nov. 2011.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081105/REVIEWS/811059995.

\end{hangparas}

\end{document}
